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Upping my bet to 30 BTC.
18TKNbSLTrd3a2W8mtoH5uNzFhWRWNcuHU
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1) That's why we have human rights and lawmakers who are supposed to act in the best interest of the people - to protect people against unfair contracts like that.
2) Your plan would introduce vast inefficiencies (way worse than the government) into road building and maintenance. If people are duplicating roads to compete for lower prices, they are putting in way more capital expenditure than is necessary. The reason there is a forced monopoly on things like roadways and utilities is because it doesn't make sense financially to have multiple companies competing for the same thing - the recovery of capital outlay would require prices much higher than is seen today. Instead of me paying $10/month in local taxes to maintain the roadways near me, I might be paying $200 in fees throughout a month of driving on some cobbled-together private road system.
1) "supposed to"... except the very existence of those lawmakers and the system which supports them is an unfair contract like that. 2) Only if someone were to do something like this, blocking off roads, rather than running them for max efficiency. If it didn't make sense for there to be multiple companies competing, there wouldn't be a need for a forced monopoly, one would develop naturally. 1) I disagree. 2) But that's exactly my point - people WOULD block off roads (until paid a handsome sum), or leave the road in a state of disrepair BECAUSE of the local monopoly. And as soon as they saw another competitor try to build a secondary route, the original road owner would lower their fees and repair their roads so that said competitor may as well not even continue building - it wouldn't end up being profitable for him. The existing road would be willing to be a temporary loss leader to drive out the competition, then resume the price-hikes and lackluster upkeep until the next competitor tried to enter the market. Now, if a competitor decided to continue building the second roadway anyhow, then the local market would drive the price down to a reasonable fee close to what we might be paying for road upkeep right now, but spread across two roads. In other words, each road owner would then only be receiving half of the fees necessary to maintain their roads. It just wouldn't work, at all. There is very sound reasoning behind forced utility monopolies with regulated pricing. |
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Fuck the Police.
 Obvious fake image is obvious. 1) So you can't have contracts like that? Contracts that says that you can change the rules by majority vote. Or implicit contracts. Or "the spirit of the law" as somebody called it.
2) Who needs to stop it completely? I just need do disrupt it. And who's to say I can't make money out of that. I could have patches of land outside of the city that I'd want to increase the value of. Or have environmentalists pay me to plant trees there. And to build new roads, even if you find place, you still have to convince every single homeowner that they want a new road on their doorstep. A single "no" would stop any improvement efforts on your part.
1) Sure, you can. There's an implied contract between you and the owner of a restaurant and yourself, that he will feed you, and you will not be an asshole. And you can have contracts where the rules can be changed by majority, but not combined at the same time. Especially when you are given no choice to accept or not the implied contract. If all your neighbors wrote up a contract that said you were the town sperm dumpster, and had to perform fellatio for any and all of them, would you feel like you have accepted a fair contract? 2) As I said, the landowners which surround your roads will not sell, they'll get together and build a road themselves, to capture some of that business that you're rejecting, if not simply to make life easier for themselves. As to making money by doing that, I suppose you could, if you wanted to ruin your reputation. You could probably make much more money by running the roads so as to maximize traffic, and as a bonus, you don't piss off an entire city. 1) That's why we have human rights and lawmakers who are supposed to act in the best interest of the people - to protect people against unfair contracts like that. 2) Your plan would introduce vast inefficiencies (way worse than the government) into road building and maintenance. If people are duplicating roads to compete for lower prices, they are putting in way more capital expenditure than is necessary. The reason there is a forced monopoly on things like roadways and utilities is because it doesn't make sense financially to have multiple companies competing for the same thing - the recovery of capital outlay would require prices much higher than is seen today. Instead of me paying $10/month in local taxes to maintain the roadways near me, I might be paying $200 in fees throughout a month of driving on some cobbled-together private road system. |
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Matthew's thread says he wins if pirate pays back as described in his [pirateat40's] thread. Pirate said he will would everyone back with interest down to the hour. If pirate pays only 20% back, and Matthew calls that a win, I feel like the community will not pay him. Then someone has to decide who gets the scammer tags.
From the bet thread:
If he owes 100% and only pays back 90% without agreement to investors, -that- is fraud and a failure to pay back. I would obviously lose the bet.
If he owes 100% and only pays back 90% but the investors agreed to it, -that- is the agreement and therefor he has paid it back. I would win the bet.
If he owes 100% and pays back 100%, I would win the bet.
If he owes 100% and does not pay anything anything back, I would lose the bet.
So technically, Matt wins even if pirate pays only 1%, as long as his investors agree to accept it. (Which they will, because even a token amount is better than zero.) That is the one sentence that prevented me from placing a bet....it gives Matt too much wiggle room to win. If Matthew wins the bets on a technicality like that, I'm taking the scammer tag and walking...but I don't think he intends to play games. My gut feeling tells me he is pissed that people called pirate a ponzi without proof and he would rather see people out their money where their mouth is. Also, I'm not sure he can dole out scammer tags as he sees fit. I imagine if there was not agreement in who won the bet, then a lot of people might get labeled scammer...that would hurt the community...imagine if bitcointalk is calling regular users scammers, what's an uninformed visitor gonna think when a large fraction of posters are "scammers." Not good. Matthew wouldn't be the one to hand out scammer tags. He is labeled as "staff" on the forum, but as far as I know, that power only extends to management of one small subforum here. |
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My offer is 100% serious, as I am 100% certain Matthew will pay out if required.
I'll take your offer. Anyone 100% certain that MNW will pay if he has to can bet against me 99:1 (I'm 1% certain that he won't pay). I will do a 1:1 bet, not interested in anything else. Then you are not 100% certain. Or I just don't like making bets that aren't 1:1. @Fray - Or he doesn't want to be that big of a scumbag. Because, let's face it, that'd be a pretty low-down move, a lot lower than simply making everyone wait a week to receive their funds (if that happens). |
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My offer is 100% serious, as I am 100% certain Matthew will pay out if required.
I'll take your offer. Anyone 100% certain that MNW will pay if he has to can bet against me 99:1 (I'm 1% certain that he won't pay). I will do a 1:1 bet, not interested in anything else. |
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The real question for miners is - Do you spend your money on these machines or do you simply buy the BTC on an exchange. Historically, are you not better off just buying BTC off MtGox, especially if you believe difficulty will dramatically increase after the first x-number of units are delivered and turned on?
+1, after some analysis and some risk models done with help of professionals back in May 2012 I have suggested to some people I've been in touch with regarding potential ASIC mining project to forget about mining and simply buy BTC instead. After that our ASIC project was scrapped. It was back when BTC was valued at 5$. My opinion is still the same. BTC represent better risk/reward than mining, provided that one keep em secure in own wallet, of course. For what it worth, Vladimir "The Miner". This is the first time I've heard that you scrapped your ASIC project. Interesting... I don't know anyone besides BFL who is making a legitimate effort towards developing a Bitcoin mining ASIC then. Anyone else know of someone? |
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Why not buy someones debt, then bet the same amount you paid against Matthew? Worst case, you get your money back. Best case, Pirate pays. Can't lose.
And you can't win either, because if the hedges are equal then you're neutral. so why bother. You can if you can pay less than 50% for Pirate debt. Say you buy 100 BTC of pirate debt for 40 BTC. You place a 40 BTC with Matthew: 1) Pirate defaults. Matthew pays you 40 BTC. You paid 40 BTC for the debt. You break even. 2) Pirate pays you 100 BTC. You pay Matthew 40 BTC. You paid 40 BTC for the debt. You made 20 BTC. Apparently, some Pirate debt is going for less than 50% of face. So either nobody's doing this or the difference between 50% and the going rate is the chance Matthew will default. where is the hedge for "MNW will not pay if he has to pay"? EDIT: or should I open a thread/bet for this? at the end someone has to pay the bill in every case! Go for it - I'll bet that he pays if he has to pay! was hypothetical and should show that at the end of the chain must be the fool. EDIT: your offer was not serious? or was it? we should NOT invite credit default swaps into bitcoin world! this is what I'm trying to say. My offer is 100% serious, as I am 100% certain Matthew will pay out if required. |
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myrkul... you keep talking about contracts with one or more people. Why don't you consider the agreement with the government to follow the law a contract? Isn't that part of being a citizen of a country is about? Have you renounced your citizenship yet to void that contract?
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Why not buy someones debt, then bet the same amount you paid against Matthew? Worst case, you get your money back. Best case, Pirate pays. Can't lose.
And you can't win either, because if the hedges are equal then you're neutral. so why bother. You can if you can pay less than 50% for Pirate debt. Say you buy 100 BTC of pirate debt for 40 BTC. You place a 40 BTC with Matthew: 1) Pirate defaults. Matthew pays you 40 BTC. You paid 40 BTC for the debt. You break even. 2) Pirate pays you 100 BTC. You pay Matthew 40 BTC. You paid 40 BTC for the debt. You made 20 BTC. Apparently, some Pirate debt is going for less than 50% of face. So either nobody's doing this or the difference between 50% and the going rate is the chance Matthew will default. where is the hedge for "MNW will not pay if he has to pay"? EDIT: or should I open a thread/bet for this? at the end someone has to pay the bill in every case! Go for it - I'll bet that he pays if he has to pay! |
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This is an informative post.
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I'm with you yochdog... which is why I only bet 5 BTC.  |
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So i read through some of the links listed and this is what im understanding: There's a guy named pirateat40. He has supposedly 500k BTC. People lended him money. There's a large group that calls him a scammer... I'm still not getting the full picture  You are forgetting he was paying 7% interest per week. Which is the same as doubling the investment every 10 weeks. That makes Pirate either a ponzi scam artist, or a genius since no one else figured out how you could possibly achieve such returns. As for why people trust him? Honestly, it beats me. In the lending section of this forum they will require a scanned ID, proof of residence and what not before lending anyone 5BTC, but for some reason a lot of people feel confident lending pirate a total of 500000BTC without even knowing for sure what his real name is. Either they know more than the rest of us, or frankly, they are idiots. *shrug* I wouldn't call them ALL idiots. Those who believed it was a scheme of some sort made a calculated assessment as to the likelihood of being able to deposit, gain interest, and withdraw funds before the scheme collapsed. Those who didn't believe it was a scheme perhaps had reasons for not believing it was a scheme. Everyone had their own set of information on which they based their decisions, and calling them idiots because it looked like they invest in a scheme isn't necessarily true. Of course, some were probably too blinded by greed to objectively view the information in front of them, so I might call them idiots. |
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But why should even 95% of the population get to enforce their will on the other 5%? Simply because there are more of them? How does their right to use the land supersede the right of the minority?
Because the two cannot coexist. Either gunners get to use the playground and force people out of it who would be using it as intended, or laws are put into place for acceptable use of public property. Either speeders get to user the road and force people off of it who would be using it as intended, or laws are put into place for acceptable use of public property. To me, it is all about intended usage. Roadways are built so that people can get from point A to point B, not so that people can use it as a racetrack. Playgrounds are built so that kids have play structures to play on, not so that gun-wielding people can use it as a shooting range. Gun shooting ranges are built for guns to be shot in, not for kids to play in. Racetracks are built for races to take place, not for people to get from point A to point B on. And laws enforcing those proper uses are absolutely legitimate and necessary (in my opinion). Otherwise, those who wished to use it for its intended purpose will be largely evicted from it via the risk forced upon them by others. |
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I can't believe what I am reading. 79 mph (126.5 kph) and 'pretty damn fast'? lol Love that part too: Another disclaimer: Aside from travel on the interstate up to Duluth one year, that is the FASTEST I have ever gone for more than a second or two when I redline my engine...
Typical speeding for me consists of maybe 8-12 over, but usually closer to 8 than 12. My speedo also over-reports my speed by about ~2%, so I really have no clue exactly HOW much over I'm going when I dip up and down.
This morning, I was REALLY late to work and that was the reason for the speedin'.
I didn't expect the land of the muscle cars to be so harsh on public roads' speed limits. If the driving conditions are safe I don't even see problems in driving 120 mph in the center of a city (although there might not be many possibilities, I can often drive at ~80 mph and much more on highways). Where do you live? The speed limits absolutely are very harsh here. I wish the US had its own version of the autobahn... |
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Lot of mad Juniors in this thread... Both for and against the idea of speeding tickets.
Here's a little about me;
I speed. A lot. I have always driven fast, my siblings also have, my parents as well. Always always always fast.
Number of accidents in the family as a direct result of speeding? Zero.
Number of accidents in the family as a result of our own shitty driving? Zero.
We've all been hit several times by idiots texting, old people, faulty road markings (This one was me, they repainted the street after I got hit.) and someone falling asleep at the wheel.
Here are some other facts some of you should consider before taking a stance here.
While I myself am a very defensive driver, and have the cognitive capabilites* to drive 80 on a deserted highway at night, some people don't. In fact, I would venture that a sizable population percentage of americans should not even have a license.
This is why laws like this are in place. Because if you take an average, this is what it takes to keep morons and old people from destroying everyone in their path.
Now me? I think I should be exempt from the limits, because I can handle my driving. (Cry foul, but come watch me drive before you tell me I'm just as shitty as anyone else.) BUT! There is no way to make an exception here, so instead taking it up with courts and representatives, I bitch to friends/family/forum.
My stance is such that we need these laws, but there are people out there who not only can get away, but should be allowed to get away with breaking laws such as speeding.
I pay every ticket, I never take it to court. I know I broke the rules, and accept my punishment.
(Fun tidbit for you all. If I had a ticket for every Stop-sign/Stop-light I have blazed through at 20+MPH, I would have approximately 14,000 instances of infraction. I drive for my job, and I know the neighborhoods I work in down to who's up at what time, who drives to work when, and even when/where the police patrol on their given patrol nights. Number of times anyone has even got close to being hurt by my actions? Zero. I can break the law in such a way that is smart and takes others into account. Keep in mind that this IS possible for people to do.)
I'm kind of in the same boat as you... my wife and I both drive very aggressively/fast (though perhaps not quite as much as yourself) compared to the average person, but we are still safe/aware/defensive about it and we've never been in any accidents. We've both been driving for 10 years now. I think speeding is a good way to stay attentive to your driving as well. I'd probably fall asleep on the freeway if I didn't give myself a little bit of excitement! And lots of people do... heh. |
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Looking through that list, I noticed a lot of 1pct and 1pnt addresses... those seemed odd to me. Not anything particularly special, so why were they "saved"?
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And be sure to include where converted orders fall in the 1/3's!
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Lets say you end up exposed to the tune of 10000BTC and you lose.
Doesn't it seem a bit crazy to have a bet of over a hundred grand with no method of collection asides a scammer tag?
I actually don't really believe he will pay out any more. At least I hope not. This wager went from ridiculous to just plain stupid a long time ago. I'll offer you a 5 BTC wager that MNW will pay out (if he loses) on his wager on whether Pirate will pay out. |
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Monday has passed and still no word, not a single peep from PIrate. The last thing he said in the chatroom was "Now back to your regularly scheduled trolling". I wonder if he's fled to cancun or something. Someone posted a link (perhaps as a joke) of an address to a live feed of a plane that was going to South America. Who knows. Either way, I feel I haven't been fair enough to those who are wishing to use this bet as a hedge to their potential losses in Pirate and I'm raising 2 numbers: - amount of maximum bet - You may now bet up to 250BTC per person
- amount of posts required - You must now be a 250+ post established member or find someone to escrow the coins for you
Cheers Lets say you end up exposed to the tune of 10000BTC and you lose. Doesn't it seem a bit crazy to have a bet of over a hundred grand with no method of collection asides a scammer tag? Do I look anonymous to you? Who doesn't know where I live? I think he's pointing it out the other direction - forum members who won't pay up. Of course, limiting the max bet to 250 BTC helps alleviate the risk - it is not as though a single forum member is betting up the whole 10,000 BTC. |
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